Animal Intelligence: The International Scientific Series, Vol. XLIV.Romanes, George John
Science
Animal Intelligence: The International Scientific Series, Vol. XLIV.
Romanes, George John
Animal behavior; Animal intelligence
On one occasion, while investigating the nature of
some large, transparent, spore-like elliptical cells
(fungal?) whose protoplasm was rotating, while it was
at the same time charged with triangular grains of
starch, I observed some actinophorous rhizopods
creeping about them, which had similarly shaped grains
of starch in their interior; and having determined the
nature of these grains in both by the addition of
iodine, I cleansed the glasses, and placed under the
microscope a new portion of the sediment from the
basin containing these cells and actinophryans for
further examination, when I observed one of the
spore-like cells had become ruptured, and that a
portion of its protoplasm, charged with the triangular
starch-grains, was slightly protruding through the
crevice. It then struck me that the actinophryans had
obtained their starch-grains from this source; and
while looking at the ruptured cell, an _actinophrys_
made its appearance, and creeping round the cell, at
last arrived at the crevice, from which it extricated
one of the grains of starch mentioned, and then crept
off to a good distance. Presently, however, it
returned to the same cell; and although there were now
no more starch-grains protruding, the _actinophrys_
managed again to extract one from the interior through
the crevice. All this was repeated several times,
showing that the _actinophrys_ instinctively knew that
those were nutritious grains, that they were contained
in this cell, and that, although each time after
incepting a grain it went away to some distance, it
knew how to find its way back to the cell again which
furnished this nutriment.
On another occasion I saw an _actinophrys_ station
itself close to a ripe spore-cell of _pythium_, which
was situated upon a filament of _Spirogyra crassa_;
and as the young ciliated monadic germs issued forth,
one after another, from the dehiscent spore-cell, the
_actinophrys_ remained by it and caught every one of
them, even to the last, when it retired to another
part of the field, as if instinctively conscious that
there was nothing more to be got at the old place.
But by far the greatest feat of this kind that ever
presented itself to me was the catching of a young
_acineta_ by an old sluggish _amoeba_, as the
former left its parent; and this took place as
follows:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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